Do you think there's any chance that the latest advancements in video calling might change that? Things like "living on video"... Streaming the remote office and maybe distributing Google glasses etc.
I think even just Skype and technologies like that really positively impacted it and has helped (logmein, gotomeeting too).
Depending on what you are trying to do there could be lots of good/bad. If you are thinking of renting space out and hiring 10 people over there and sticking them in an office and they are solely your team then you have a greater chance of success. But you are going to have to learn to do business in India, learn their rules, learn how to get what you need there etc. That means how to hire, fire, discipline, manage and deal with local authorities. If you think it is hard doing that as a startup in the states, try doing it in two countries at once. Oh, and you will need to be there every few months in person to make sure you are getting what you want, price that airplane ticket * 4-6 times a year. :) I have been asked a lot why I feel face time is so important with remote teams like India, Brazil etc. Frankly the #1 reason is our cultures are different, so interpreting the nuances of spoken phrases or the unspoken is much harder unless you spend time with them. This is by no means bashing anyone, but it is a reality, you need to learn their culture and respect the differences so you can work with them successfully.
If you are thinking of trying to let them work remote out of their house, I have not had 1 good experience trying that as many will sell their time to 3-4 companies this way and do a mediocre job at best and generally a horrible job. This is the numbers game I was referencing, you might luck out, but more than likely you will hit the game of numbers constantly cycling through people.
And if you are thinking to use a dev shop over there, that has its own problems. Most specifically is you rarely will speak to the guy writing the code. They insulate the teams so much that the guy sitting in front of a keyboard has had 3-4 layers of filtering done. Not saying this is true for every place, as I know there are some that are not that way. But in general I saw a lot of this going on.
And even if you go to some of the smaller shops that promise the opposite, then you get the issue of the 11+ hour time difference and the fact that your communication and documentation will need to be excellent to get good results out of them.
My whole team today is basically remote, we work in different cities etc and that works because of technologies like IM, Skype, Hangouts etc. But we are all in the US and all have similar education, understandings and backgrounds. And the team is motivated to produce high quality because it is their name/reputation on the product too. Of course they are also not paid a 3rd world wage either which helps. And even with all that, we still have to get together, hash through things and solve problems in the same room sometimes. So far no technology I have ever seen will replace sitting in a room with 4-5 smart people and a white board. Even when I worked with Indian firms for some of the larger projects I was on, I flew there regularly to meet with the team we hired over there. And we did have video conferencing already. It is really hard to get people that are 8k miles away to have the same level of passion about your project as you do unless you show up regularly to get them involved.
I am not bashing remote work out of India or any other Country, it is just that the problem is hard to solve, and for a startup it is a very tough problem unless you already know people in the Country you want to work with. If you look at Oracle, Microsoft, GE etc, all have dev shops in India and other places. And every one of them has US based personnel that directly are in Country or make regular visits there to manage the shops. They also have significant budgets and staff to write super detailed specs etc. And frankly, if you have seen their dev timelines, it shows.
What about taking advantage of the back log of denied or pending, highly skilled U.S. Visa applicants? It seems to me that tech companies can't import them fast enough. I'm thinking it's time to go to the source instead.
Thanks for your feedback. Just curious... Have you tried it or do you have some sort of negative experience with remote devs? I'm going to need to do something sooner or later.
Its really good then. I am so happy to hear that. Hope you identify a great set of developers / testers with whom you can collaborate with. Let me know if you need any assistance. I have done that before for a couple of product companies in the US and one in Singapore... Will be more than happy to help you.
Also, wishing you a great success with your product.
Thanks for your feedback! I'm not an Indian native but I am taking language classes in anticipation of doing something in the future. I'm hearing that it really depends on the people.
The complaints you hear about Indian developers are for the $500/month developers.
The developers you can hire in India for $1,000 to $2,000 are competent and comparable with $120k to $150k US developers. These developers work with the modern frameworks and write beautiful code.
Companies like Amazon, Google, Yahoo and successful Indian startups pay upwards of $2,000/mo to great developers.
We have a small team in India and we pay $500 to $1,000 for off-site SEOs and $1,500 to $2,500 to developers.
My comment above goes into more detail but if you want the best Indian software engineers, you need to pay them more than another company would (just like in any other free market in the world). This is a constantly moving target.
Yes, isn't that possible with direct hiring instead of paying more to go through outsourcing firms? My understanding is that roughly $500 monthly puts an Indian in the middle class. Double that and I figure we would be really attractive to young, entry level programmers.
Those outsourcing firms usually pay between $300 to $1,000 to developers. They usually hire bad programmers who do not understand fundamentals and write spaghetti code from an ancient era.
This salary isn't attractive to good programmers any more.
Maybe not in America but India's different and remember, smart phones made in third world countries have different markups since manufacturing is cheap and nearby.
You hit it, thanks! Not interested in outsourcing, per say. My goal would be to leverage low market wages in India by setting up a foreign office with it's own management etc.
How far above average pay do you think I would have to go?
Not trolling, 100% serious. I don't actually want to do outsourcing, per say. My interest lies more in leveraging low market wages in India and actually setting up a foreign office with it's own management etc.
From other comments here, having someone on-site there improves the odds. But why bother? If you're a startup, you are creating one more unnecessary problem. Also, if you're a startup, you probably are going to be changing things frequently, resulting in constant software updates. In my experience, outsourcing works best (or least awfully) if the task you are outsourcing is completely specified, with no ambiguity. If you are going to be changing specs on them, it won't work so well.
I understand a startup needing to save money, but doing it this way seems crazy to me. I've done five startups by now (four with successful exits). If I were to join another, outsourced software development would be a red flag -- I'd stay away.
Thanks, are you saying they tend to be lower quality coders or just outdated coders? Maybe you're saying both. We're talking as more or more than 80% worth of discounts in compensation packages when compared to American programmers.
Possibly cue South Park Super Cool Ski Instructor meme. If your first-stated reason "to talk" is "more than 80% worth of discounts", then you're going to have a bad time if the work you are outsourcing is at all highly-skilled. For highly-routinized process work by ops staff, sure, knock yourself out; but you're going to find extremely qualified folks for that in the heartland of the US working for wages competitive with the offshore outfits as well.
How logical is it that you will find someone smart enough to hack full-stack or even a Fabrice Bellard-grade hacker, but not savvy enough to sift through sales channels until they command a rate commensurate with their demonstrated delivery capabilities? This is unicorn-hunting. They do exist, you can land them, but in the meantime your competitors are focusing on Getting Shit Done by not wasting time trying to prematurely optimize their expense structure. If these unicorns were so easily abundant, and if it was that easy, then Google would have long since abandoned recruiting at American universities.
You might have better results if you specified in more detail what you are looking for. Generally, my experience is that coding talent is roughly evenly smeared across the global pool; I'm looking generally for devops types that know their OS's, basic data and control structures in an Algol'ish language (scripted and/or compiled), and work well when customer-facing. There isn't enough difference between geographies to alter the basic recruitment search strategy though tactics will differ (the technical culture is relatively consistent across the globe). Not enough difference to yield dramatically better returns at least, so nationality won't determine whether you get "lower quality" or "outdated" coders. In my experience, individuals' personalities and company culture has a far greater impact on code quality than nationality or ethnicity.
In my market space, given how long it really takes to absorb a significant technical base, on the order of 12-18 months, I'm not inclined to "yield chase" by trying to find cheap technical staff with a turnover that is frequently sooner than that spin-up time before truly insightful work from them starts to get traction. YMMV, so please share your details.
